Читать книгу William Hogarth: The Cockney's Mirror - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 13

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During the period that we shall consider—1720-1764—there was no great outward change in England, though there were from year to year the usual variations in taste, fashion and fancy, and though the period covers a rebellion, two wars, the rise of the English school of portraiture and the rule of three Kings with their changes of ministers; all these ministers were, however, Whig, a fact which gave a uniform tone to public life.

When William Hogarth died in 1764, the industrial revolution, which had been so long gathering force unseen, was beginning to advance quickly; within a few years the inventions of Arkwright, Hargreaves and Watt were to mark the beginnings of a great upheaval in the national life, and, across the Channel, the philosophes were beginning those speculations that preluded and influenced the gigantic changes in the history of mankind known as the French Revolution. But during the life of Hogarth such things were, undreamt of; the ideals of the democrats of 1789 were as little suspected as the invention of gas lighting or of the steam engine.